The Indicator x The Student: “The Hoarder”

At times, I close my eyes, and the weight of my face dawns on me. Cheekbones upon which the cheekflesh sits, threatening to this time for sure slip right off and be lost. Too full a lower lip, and an even fuller upper, but what registers is always the way the corners of my mouth pull downwards and downwards into jowls that swing with every intake of breath. Dripping with saliva. At times, when I remember this vision of myself, I let my eyes sink a little further into their sockets until they encounter a new set of nerve endings and I am transported back to the time I met the Hoarder.

—

Spidery limbs arranged haphazardly. Grey skin stretched over a distended belly that flutters in spurts — the only sign something here lives. Its habitat is mostly empty space, for the creature is a lonely figure, but still the air emanates a strange thickness. Noticing me, it is instantly transfixed. It blinks slowly. Something syrupy slips over the rim of its lower eyelid, sticky strings weighing down full lashes. This is the kind of being that cruelty would moon over. How delicious would it be to shred you. Pushing down the visceral response, I spin away: I am not here to crush. I am here to commune.

CAN YOU

I look back. Is it trying to say something?

CAN YOU

By now, what seems like buckets of glue are leaking from every visible crevice of its form, pooling around its legs, trapping it. It lifts an arm, sluggish, and quivers with the strain of reaching out to me. Can I what? I call out, debating between walking back and the liquid that oozes closer by the second (surely biohazardous?), so that I too end up doing a strange, quavery sort of lean towards the outstretched figure. The both of us are held momentarily in the other’s slope, with nothing but the seepage to disturb the hum that swells between us. Clearing my throat, I can’t be waiting here forever, I say. It blinks again, and this time, something beneath the sheen of the seeping fluids, flickers anxiously.

CAN YOU
HOLD ME
?

It cuts a pathetic picture: All earnest ribs and wet flaps of loose skin that tremble as if held in a sea current. Fine, I say. As I wade my way towards the figure — thank god the stuff’s not touching me yet, these boots are quality — it becomes evident that the fluid isn't only flowing out from the being, but rippling minutely within itself. Getting closer, it becomes evident that these are pictures, moving pictures, swimming curiously at me. From certain angles: A chewed up toy. Smudgy mirror. Ornamental piano basking in disuse. And as I come right up against its body, and sink my hands into its outer coat of sheen, it is with a gasp because when the liquid touches my skin it’s like an entire world is pulsing beneath me, like something devastating is held flush against every contour of my fingerprint.

Feeling submerged, I try to settle into its fleshy embrace, try to ignore the bombardment of lemongingertea/newyearfireworks/aforeignsweater/verseforaloveletter/brastrapthatslips/asinglefirefly/sinkingdownintotheforgettingpool/marigoldsmarigolds/ being transmit to me through my shoulders, the depression of my back, between our chests.

A soft exhale tickles the air, and then the fabric of the moment goes slack.

The avalanche happens slowly. At first little flaming petals twizzle towards the ground, singeing the tops of my shoulders. Red ribbons hiss off the air, unraveling dizzily, just the friction of the motion sets every single spiral on fire. The space around us accordions in and out, before, with a light puff, totally unfolding — any thickness is now liberated and on fire. And why would it not? Was this place not built to burn? Sparks dance in the pools of mucus around us, and tadpoles of light kiss between the memories. My chest aches in response. The arms circling me squeeze, as if to shield me from the fall out, and I’m grateful so I lean in but then they continue to tighten, exerting a vice-grip around my body. Startling, I try to extricate myself, but its hold is incessant and I can only claw helplessly at its sticky sticky sides. Its fingers dig into my ribs, something pops and I can’t breathe anymore these are the last sips of breath black spots dot my vision is that a marigold crumbling over me losing peripheral only a thick pounding behind my eyes registers — why is this — have you never wanted to be crushed? — elation — it was a special pleasure to burn —

And then a piano flies into us. The figure squelches, releasing me, falling, and I am flung upwards and away, all breathless and caught up in paper doll chains made out of the skin of the air.

Why would you do that? I honk between gasping breaths. I’m not sure what I refer to. The creature looks over with an impassive stare, its limbs folded almost imperiously into itself, even as the rest of its body heaves and spits gadgets and gizmos. From my new vantage point, the utter collapse is clear — any empty space has caved in around the being and its gloopy, Thing lagoon. It’s like looking into a pinhole. And the flame — the flame gurgles, gorging itself on the condensed oxygen, rushing over the slick surfaces as if it is not glossy visions but oil that makes up the creature’s secretions. I retch, and crawl my way toward the juncture, stumbling over the debris, pushing past air that would shred apart at the gentlest touch, how can I help you how can I stop this, please want to live, I babble, but the words don’t seem to get any farther than the front of my face. The fire reaches the monster. The ex-images, of piano and spectacular koi fish, guilty eyes and dirty tears, of fresh fruit love, lift into the fire and engulf its — her body. She, of course a woman, is set wholly alight. And that is all I could really make out — the rest is whispered into my flesh by the last sticky strings that cling sweet to my waist.

—

In the end, she wasn’t a misshapen mass, bogged down by the river of memory. She did not feel the sizzle of her skin, the unweight of water finally evaporating off of her. All she saw, in the end, was the immediate flame. As her fingertips blackened, her arms fell behind her, head hanging back, until she was positioned at the centre of the sun, drawing in the milk of the universe. Before she winked out, she had time to think about a few things. A companion’s laughter, that sang like pebbles tumbling along the whorls of the wind. Two robins that loved in her ceiling, whose children she taught how to fly. The different hands that had held her breasts, some wanted, others that defined the word ‘colonization’ for her. A hesitant body that had once leaned in, and she had tried to keep all for herself. And as she conducted the last of her disassembly, the final curl of her frame implored:

Watch on. Hold me in your gaze. Come to terms with the slope of my being.